Zonel Sougaijam, a 22-year-old civil engineer, was awarded US$5000 by the social media giant and included in the ‘Facebook Hall of Fame 2019’, for detecting a WhatsApp bug. His name is at the 16th position on a list of 94 people. “During a WhatsApp voice call, the bug allowed the caller to upgrade it to a video call without the authorisation and knowledge of the receiver. The caller was then able to see what the other person was doing, violating the privacy of the receiver,” said Sougaijam, who reported it to the Bug Bounty Program of Facebook.
After discovering the bug, Sougaijam said, he had reported the matter to the Bug Bounty Program of the Facebook, which deals with violation of privacy matters, in March. He said his report was acknowledged by the Facebook Security team the very next day and its technical department fixed the bug within 15-20 days.
“After reviewing this issue, we have decided to award you a bounty of $5000,” Facebook said in an e-mail sent to Sougaijam. The man said he found his name in the Facebook ‘ Hall of Fame’ page this month. Facebook, owned by Mark Zuckerberg, purchased the messaging service WhatsApp for a staggerring $19 billion in February 2014.
Picture Credit : Google
